Turkeys in the Rain
by CompYES
Summary: Sam let Buffy drag him to the middle of nowhere for something pointless. But even when things seem pointless, there's always something meaningful about it when it comes to Buffy. half crack, half serious SW/BS


**Turkeys in the Rain**

Summary: Sam let Buffy drag him to the middle of nowhere for something pointless. But even when things seem pointless, there's always something meaningful about it when it comes to Buffy.  
Spoilers: SPN end of S3, BtVS the whole series is game.  
Disclaimer: Supernatural is to Kripke. Buffy is to Whedon. I am to me alone. This is my official favorite SPN/BtVS disclaimer. I will never change it. Ever.

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Sometimes, Sam could never really understand her. Buffy Summers was a destructive, chaotic force of nature that had hit him out of the blue. On a hunt though, she was the only person left he could count on to be there and have his back. There were others he would've trusted this to, but of the three he could name, two were dead and the other was unavailable because he didn't want to see him. Bobby couldn't understand the way he felt. Sam didn't want to get over it. He didn't want to move on, or slow down. He wanted to settle the thing in him that screamed for the blood of the demon bitch that took Dean away from him. No matter what he tried, he never forgot the feeling he experienced seeing him die. The one of hatred that screamed for justice and revenge. Deeper still, he never forgot the feeling of guilt. That he put Dean in that hole as much as Lilith and those hellhounds had.

That was probably one of the reasons he kept her around. Because she understood why he was doing this. He knew her capabilities as a slayer meant she could take care of herself and fight along side him without slowing him down on the path to vengeance. In a way, he also trusted her to take care of him and keep him honest. In the beginning, right after the funeral, Sam had been unable to focus on much beyond get Dean back, find the demon, kill the demon. With that kind of tunnel vision, it wasn't hard to see himself doing things that would've offended his sensibilities only a couple years back, and disregard his own well being. He'd been on the brink, ready to summon a crossroads demon to bring Dean back, to give in to the offer Ruby had made him to show him how to use his powers. Then he'd met her. Met Buffy. She'd caught him digging the hole, trying to conduct the ritual, and literally almost beat him to death after figuring out what he was doing.

At the time, she was terrified that he was trying to drag Dean back from heaven. She'd admitted to him late one night, weeks into their time hunting together, in the dark of the hotel room that she'd died once. Her own friends had brought her back from heaven mistakenly thinking she was in hell. Buffy hadn't been able to face him for a while, afraid he wouldn't react well to her revealing her secret. Most hunters didn't. It was hard to avoid someone when you traveled in the close confines of a car with them, though. Sam eventually forced her to talk to him about it and told her about how he'd died as well. How his life had been the trade for Dean's. Buffy had listened to him, glad that he could still stand to speak with her, and instead of offering him sympathy, offered him help in finding Lilith if it meant keeping him from suicidal, haphazard quests to summon his brother back from the dead. It had begun the long process of setting him straight, no crossroad deals, no working with "slutty ulterior motive demons." That had also been his first step towards accepting Dean was dead and he wasn't coming back. He couldn't do the same thing to Dean, die and leave Dean alone and in the exact state he was in. It was the same way he couldn't bare the thought of leaving Buffy alone either.

The longer he knew her, the more he realized she was just as messed up, if not more so, than he and Dean ever were. Their father had told introduced them to some slayer myth and lore. Dean had scoffed at it, but it always made Sam wonder about the champion the world had against the supernatural that had such a profound impact on his life. He'd had his fair share of the supernatural fucking with him, first killing his entire family starting with his mother, and ending with Dean. Like him, the supernatural world had stolen a normal life away from Buffy, forced her to become a warrior. People she cared about died, or worse, turned their back on her for who and what she was. Sam had always been a coward, had hidden this side of him from the people at Stanford. At least Buffy had been brave enough to open herself up to other people even if they didn't stay by her side.

Buffy was a mess.

But she was also the most together person he knew in the world of hunters. His father had been unstable. Bobby had completely retreated into paranoia of the monsters they hunted. Then there was every other hunter like him who was thrown into this world and fueled by the need to avenge a wrong the supernatural world had done them. Buffy hadn't chosen this life. If she weren't the slayer, she would've given it up a long time ago. Her values, her dedication to be a good person and fight the "good fight" because evil needed to be fought was the purest motivation a person could have to hunt he'd ever heard. It reminded him a lot of Dean, who'd genuinely believed that what they did was to help people. There were times Sam felt like he was using her as a replacement for Dean. No, Sam knew he was using her as a replacement for Dean. Whether she knew that or not, she never commented on it. She just continued to input witty comebacks to his sarcastic taunts, and remained a ray of optimism even when he felt on the edge of whatever bad idea he was bound to indulge.

Today, Buffy had decided she wanted to go somewhere. Sam had been reluctant initially, but she reminded them they had no new leads on Lilith, no new cases, and she was paying for gas. It became a "what the hell, why not?" kind of situation. He saw no harm in it, and Buffy never really asked to go anywhere beyond food and the occasional supermarket to pick up toiletries. If it would make her happy and stop her from singing obnoxious songs to irritate him, it would be fine. When she'd told him she wanted to go to Illinois, and he'd scratched his head and tried to figure out just what she'd need to go see or do in Illinois. Most of her remaining friends and family were based in LA and Cleveland, some even as far as London and Scotland. Not that she ever liked to talk about them much. It was a little doubtful that she'd be going to meet any of her friends and even more doubtful she was going to Illinois to do so. With Buffy, it was really just a mystery. Every time he tried to catch her planning the course and trip out on his laptop, she'd shut the screen and delete her viewing history before returning it. With no luck at figuring it out, Sam just gave up and accepted that he'd find out once they reached Illinois.

Which brought them to where they were now. At Buffy's insistence, he parked the Impala off to the side of the dirt rode they'd taken. Her directions had led them to Waterman, Illinois. On all sides, there was farmland around them. Lots of crops, lots of buildings. The structure closest to them was an enormous pen full of large white turkeys. Buffy had made no move to go down to the any of the buildings to talk to any of the people. Instead, she got out of the car and hopped up onto the hood of the car. For a second he could imagine Dean whistling appreciatively at the sight of a pretty girl on the hood of his car. It amused him for a while, even as it saddened him. The first five minutes, Sam waited on her to do something else, but she continued to sit there, observing the turkeys as if they were the most fascinating sight ever. Noticing it was starting to look overcast, he decided to get out of the car and demand some answers about just what they were doing here.

"I'm here to see if it's true."

"If what's true?"

"This thing I heard about domestic turkeys," Buffy told him excitedly, "I heard that they're so dumb, when it rains, they look up and open their mouths. They have so little survival instincts, they don't notice they've drowned until, bam!"

She clapped her hands together loudly to emphasize her point. Sam could only stare at her in slack-jawed disbelief. Buffy wanted to come out here... to watch turkeys drown in the rain?

"You know that's really morbid," Sam told her, eying her, disturbed, "And it's also untrue."

"No way!" Buffy exclaimed, "I didn't believe it when my dad told me about it long ago when I was a little girl. I thought he was lying at first, but when he explained it, I thought maybe it was. You're telling me it really isn't?"

"No. A turkey drowning itself is a myth. They wouldn't look up to see the rain."

Buffy pouted.

"It would've been interesting if they really did."

"Were you really planning on sitting out here in the rain and watch a turkey drown?"

"If I say yes, will you judge me?"

"I already am," Sam quipped, "But seriously? Buffy, you would've caught a cold. Aren't you the one who always gets on me about watching my health?"

"Yeah, I just...I don't know..."

"What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. A turkey drowning would be a lot more exciting to watch than nothing else, but at the same time, I was kinda hoping that I'd see for myself that none of them actually got themselves killed. You kind of took the suspense out of it, Sammy."

If it were anyone else but her, he would've been upset by the use of the nickname.

"Why did you want to see whether they'd drown or not?"

"I haven't had a real Thanksgiving in a long time. It got me thinking about past Thanksgivings and all those turkeys. I mean, do they all have to be killed just for some stupid American tradition? The fact that the turkeys would lack the will to live so badly, they'd kill themselves in the rain. I just hoped that maybe that wasn't the real fate for the turkeys, you know?"

Sam finally realized this wasn't really about turkeys anymore. Buffy was staring out into the distance stretched before the Impala, a pondering look upon her face. When Buffy wasn't talking, or slaying, or sleeping, she went into these intense reflective silences. He'd call it brooding, but she never seemed angry or miserable, just thoughtful. She just liked to consider her life a lot when she wasn't making his a confusing and strange mix up of one. She was thinking about the turkeys the way she thought about herself. Slayers died young for the sake of others with little to no happiness for themselves. But Buffy was different. Buffy wasn't the run of the mill slayer who died when her time came. She fought for her right to live.

"Well..." Sam finally said, "Think of it this way, all turkeys die some day. If they didn't I guess there'd be a whole lot of immortal turkeys and no Thanksgiving feasts." He watched her smile a little at that. "But I think these turkeys are happy. They look like they're well fed, and none of them seem very lonely, so they wouldn't go and kill themselves. They're not that stupid. They've probably got good heads on their shoulders. Who knows? What if some of the turkeys are missed? Some turkeys can last till ripe old age before they go. There's always a chance."

She turned to him, amused with attempt to help her snap out of the strange thoughts she was having about death and turkeys. It was a role reversal, since it was usually her reassuring him, helping him feel better when the nightmares got bad and he missed Dean too much.

"Thanks Sam."

"For what?"

He gave her a conspiratory smile, which she returned. She hopped off the car.

"Let's go find a place to hunker down for the night Sam. Like you said, it's gonna rain, and it's getting late, and we should I don't know..." she trailed off.

"Get a move on?" he provided for her.

"Yeah. We'll probably have a case by morning. We should be completely rested for that."

"Sure," he agreed, following her lead and getting back into the driver's seat as she got in on the passenger side.

For the first part of their trip into town to find a place to stop at, she talked a couple minutes straight about some TV show she wanted to catch old re-runs of once they got to hotel. Something about space cowboys and fireflies. It sounded interesting as he listened to her talk about it. Eventually, she dozed off, letting him know that she really was more tired than she'd let on earlier. Paying half of his attention to the road, he glanced at her a couple times before brushing some of the hair out of her face. The whole day, he could practically hear Dean chanting chick flick moment in the background. Now he could again almost feel him there, silently cheering him on to kiss Buffy. But he didn't listen. Now wasn't the time. Sam still wasn't right after Dean's death. Buffy was still trying to find herself now that she had time away from her responsibilities and from the council.

Maybe.

Maybe one day he'd tell her he was in love with her. He knew his life would swan dive back into the downward spiral it had been on since Dean went to hell whenever she decided to leave him. He wasn't strong enough to go this alone anymore. Who would've thought the tiny blond who talked like a valley girl would become like air to him? She was random, confusing, and picked fights with the monsters they tried to hunt as if she had a death wish. But of the two of them, she was life, she was survival, and Sam could bear to not let himself drown in his sorrow a little longer if she was the one keeping him afloat. For however long they remained together, on the road.

* * *

End

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AN: Stupid turkeys. Stupid inspiration. It's not even the right month for this crap.


End file.
